Touring on a VStar 650 Custom: “I haven't a clue as to how my story will end. But that's all right. When you set out on a journey and night covers the road, you don't conclude the road has vanished. And how else could we discover the stars?" (unknown)

Yes Emily

Yes Emily, girls can ride motorcycles!

Sunday, January 27, 2013

My "Tour de Garages" begins - Post 1: What, you might ask, does collecting shoes have to do with motorcycles?

If you’d asked me a couple of years ago, “what do you
collect?” I’d have told you, “Nothing!” But, being older allows me to be more
honest and honestly, when I look around I have to admit I could be accused of collecting
a few things; one of them might be shoes. (People who know me would also say I
collect pens, but that little fetish is closer to hoarding than collecting.)
Now I’m not an unreasonable collector. I have a rule … a new pair in and an old
pair out. So I bend the rule a bit as I set the new pair on the floor while
I decide (in a week or maybe three) what pair I must part with... And what, you might ask, does collecting shoes have to do
with motorcycles? Nothing, except for the fact that I have multiple pair of
shoes and only one motorcycle. I do not collect motorcycles, probably because
most motorcycles cost way more than the most shoes and I wouldn’t have any place to
put more than one motorcycle anyway (unless, of course, I moved the shoes out then
I might fit a small scooter in the closet.) However, lucky for me, I do know a couple of
people who are collectors though some refuse to admit it.

My friend Ken is one of those ‘not collector’ collectors. According
to Ken, he’s an accumulator. By definition;
a collector is a person that collects things of a specified type,
professionally or as a hobby; a hoarder is someone who accumulates things and
hides them away for future use - is he by definition a motorcycle hoarder
then? (Oh crap, does that mean I am a shoe hoarder? Shoes and pens, I need more
motorcycles please!)

Accumulator, collector or hoarder, doesn’t really matter,
what does matter is that I asked if he’d let me wander around his garage and
share some of his ‘anti-collection’ and he said yes … opening the way for a
series of seriously motorcycle related blogs to begin. We're Canadian eh! If we can’t ride we
might as well
spend the cold months talking about riding motorcycles so I’m going to poke around a few garages over the next bit …
my Tour
de Garages begins (you never know, I might learn something along the
way.) I don't know how many posts there will be in this series, guess it just depends on how many garages I get to poke about in.

Coming next - Here’s the pick of the
litter – not the newest or the oldest, not the best ride or even the first
ride – just his personal favorite.

I used to collect Pens. I would go to pen shops everywhere I went. Then I used to collect Cameras but for the past decade I've been collecting/hording sandals until I discovered that I don't need them anymore

Trobairitz - I was hoping a few people might like to venture a guess ... as a matter of fact, next post I may challenge!(10 miles of riding is 10 more miles than we've done here in the last 3 months ;}